


Certainty

by Fire_Sign



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Miss Fisher's Secret Santa Mysteries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-10 23:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12922389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Sign/pseuds/Fire_Sign
Summary: “I always worried another man would sweep you away from me,” he tells her at an airfield early one morning, but it’s only half the story.A short little ficlet for the Miss Fisher's Secret Santa Mysteries exchange





	Certainty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [afteriwake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/gifts).



> Very happy holidays to @penaltywaltz/afteriwake! I hope this brings a smile to your face.

“I always worried another man would sweep you away from me,” he tells her at an airfield early one morning, but it’s only half the story. He expects she will leave eventually--there are only so many charms a man like him can possess, and she’s got a restless soul--and in some ways the inevitability of it is more soothing than tragic; it is the idea that he could lose her, not to her own independence but to another man, interchangeable and forgotten, that haunts him.

“I worried you’d forgotten me,” he tells her in a London bedroom early one morning, but it’s only half the story. He worried that she had regretted her offer, that having been reminded of the wider world she would see how dull an inspector from Melbourne really is. She looks up at him, her chin settled against his chest, and smiles; she doesn’t reply, but she shows him how very much she remembers.

“I worry you’ll regret me,” he tells her on a boat somewhere in the Mediterranean early one morning, but it’s only half the story. He worries that one day, possibly soon, this waltz will be over and there will be nothing left of their friendship, that he will be left not just without her, but with the knowledge that she would undo the time they had, that she would take another path if such a thing was possible.

 

* * *

 

“I often worried that another woman would have a stronger claim,” she tells him late one night, the confession whispered against his skin as he sleeps. She would never stand against it; though the idea pains her, she would let him go for his own happiness. And if she thinks, briefly, that she could bring him all the happiness in the world, it’s a thought that’s quickly quashed; she knows her nature, knows there are no promises she can make, even if she feels the words beneath her skin.

“I worried you had forgotten me,” she tells him in the middle of the ballroom, the London sky outside the windows dark; there’s laughter in her voice and the unsettling prickle that it’s not as much of a joke as she wants to believe. Her invitation had come easily, without regret or desire to rescind; his silence in the following weeks had been louder than she had imagined. His response is nothing more than a stroke of his thumb against her wrist, and it sends a fire through her. She finds a dark corner shortly after, and he shows her all the things he remembers.

“I worry you’ll regret me,” she tells him, one late night on a ship that has crossed into the southern hemisphere. His face is tilted up to the sky, studying the stars, but she cannot tear her eyes from his profile; she thinks she has memorised every line, every detail, for the moment they no longer work. But he smiles and the lines are different, and all the time in the world will not be enough.

 

* * *

 

They are in Melbourne, in bed, at a time that is neither night nor day. He writhes beneath her as they both chase their bliss; she pulses above him as they both find it. There is kisses and laughter and a mingled scent of sex and sweat and them that has become a familiar perfume.  
“Worried?” asks one, blue eyes sparkling and a hint of cockiness in their tone.  
“Never,” replies the other. “It’s never done any good anyway.”


End file.
